


Frames of Reference

by Echo



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Medical Procedures, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:48:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28843365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Echo/pseuds/Echo
Summary: There's a difference between 'mostly alive' and 'mostly dead'. Sometime it's just hard to remember which one is which, especially when you get right down to the details.Migration/repost from 2008 LJ
Relationships: Jack Harkness & Owen Harper
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	Frames of Reference

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically a repost - I'm migrating a few of my very old rarepair stories off my very old LJ account.

"Why are you still here Owen? It's almost nine. In the evening. You're are allowed to go home occasionally."

Owen, for his part, was unashamedly rifling through the equipment on Tosh's desk.

"I know what time it is Jack," he replied distractedly, "Tosh didn't bloody leave until eight thirty though, did she? Anyway, it's Tuesday."

"Tosh was staying late to keep an eye on you Owen, I thought you would have figured that out by now."

"Well obviously," Owen rolled his eyes, "but I was hoping she'd give up around seven, maybe seven thirty. I need to use her soldering iron and there's no way she'd let me have it unless I explained what I need it for."

Jack raised an eyebrow.

"And what exactly do you need it for?"

"It's complicated."

"Oh."

Jack watched Owen making a mess of Tosh's carefully organised space for another minute before dropping a hand on Owen's shoulder and steering him back from the desk. Owen started to protest, but Jack gave him a pointed look before opening Tosh's third drawer and removing a soldering iron. He held it out towards a slightly miffed Owen.

"How did you know where," he began, then shook his head and shrugged, "never mind."

"You'll clear up this mess before Tosh gets back tomorrow." Jack instructed, but it was said with a gentle humour.

"Yeah, course I will," Owen nodded, then gestured towards the autopsy bag with the point of the soldering iron. "I'll just go take care of this first, then I'll put everything away. She won't even know I was here."

Jack watched Owen make his way across the footbridge and into the stairwell down to the autopsy bay.

There was no doubt that Owen was doing better now than he had been a week ago, but there were still moments. Someone would make an accidental faux pas, offer him coffee, or playfully threaten him with bodily harm before doing a double take and stumbling through an apology. Owen, for his part, would just put on a fake smile or make some sarcastic remark, then disappear down into the autopsy bay by himself for an hour or so before coming up as though nothing had happened.

It has happened again earlier that day. They had all been sitting at the meeting table talking through some problem or another. Ianto had brought in pizzas, and Owen had not only taken a slice, but bitten off a piece before he realised what he was doing. Everyone had fallen completely silent, starting at him removing the half-masticated slice from his mouth. He very calmly stood up, walked over to the bin, disposed of the remains, then walked out of the room closing the door firmly behind him.

Tosh had tried to follow him, but she was back in the meeting room less than a minute later wearing a forlorn expression. Owen stayed hidden away for almost two hours after that.

Jack had already made the decision not to push Owen any more. Not yet. Owen had sought him out last time he needed reassurance, and there was no reason to expect that it wouldn't happen again when he was ready. And yet...

Jack sighed and started back to his office when a thought occurred. He stopped for a moment, then about faced and walked straight to the autopsy bay.

"What do you mean 'It's a Tuesday'? What's wrong with Tuesdays?"

Owen startled, dropping the soldering iron like a child dropping a cookie after being discovered with his hand in the jar.

"What?" he managed to get out.

"Before, when I asked you why you were still here. You said that Tosh had only just left, then you said 'Anyway, it's Tuesday'. I want to know what's so special about Tuesdays."

"Oh!" Owen blinked, then gave a lopsided grin. "Rubbish television, Tuesdays. It's all 'What not to wear' and 'Big Brother' and that god-awful game show with the red head. Anne whatsherface."

"The Weakest Link?" Jack volunteered. Owen faked a look of shock.

"Don't tell me you're a fan?" He teased. Jack laughed.

"I happen to be very good at trivia!"

Owen rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I'd rather stay here than go home to that though". He turned away from Jack in a gesture most people would understand to mean that the conversation was over. Despite his earlier conviction to give Owen space though, Jack chose to ignore the subtext by walking quite brazenly down the rest of the stairs.

"So you going to tell me what the soldering iron is for then?" Jack asked. His voice was deliberately casual.

Owen didn't look at him.

"I wasn't planning on it," he replied, doing his best to look busy.

"Go on... I swear I won't tell Tosh?" he wheedled.

"Not gonna help."

Jack tried a different tack. "What if I threaten to tell Tosh unless you explain?" Owen considered this for a moment, then busied himself rearranging a selection of instruments on the side table keeping his back to Jack.

"I'd rather you didn't," He replied passively.

Jack wasn't entirely sure why he was pushing this now. He had already decided to let Owen deal with things the way he wanted to, but there was something here which had Jack feeling uneasy.

Jack took a step towards Owen and placed a friendly if somewhat tentative hand on his shoulder.

"What if I ask really nicely?"

Owen shrugged off Jack's hand and moved across to another table a few feet away. The table on which the soldering iron was resting, a small light indicating that it was powered and heating.

"Piss off Jack, I'm busy."

Jack didn't say anything this time. He just stood where he was, watching Owen, who was now standing between Jack and the soldering iron as though hoping Jack might forget about it if it was out of sight. Owen crossed his arms defensively.

"Don't you have some paperwork to do? Maybe a roof to stand on? You know, some place to be which is away from me?"

Jack dipped his head. He knew full well he had backed Owen into a proverbial corner, and he didn't really understand why he'd done it. Unfortunately, if he didn't stop soon, Owen would lash out like he always did when he felt threatened. Now that he considered it, the young man had been uncharacteristically patient with Jack so far, and he really didn't think it was wise to push his luck any further. He stepped back, away from Owen and towards the stairs.

"I suppose I do. I'll be in my office if you need anything." he said.

Owen nodded, not even sparing Jack a glance as he walked back up the stairs.

\---

It wasn't loud proclamation of "Fuck it!" which brought Jack running back to the autopsy bay a few minutes later, swearing was an expected side-effect of Owen working back late. Jack was drawn by the loud clatter of metal on tile which immediately preceded the exclamation.

When he arrived, he was not overly surprised to see one of the instrument tables lying on its side, with previously sterile instruments scattered around the floor. Owen was sitting on the side of the examination table, his head was bent over and his back hunched in a portrait of frustration.

"Owen?" Jack prompted. There was no response, so he tried again, "Owen, is everything okay? I heard the table..." he trailed off. Owen wasn't responding. He wasn't even moving. Completely still, and eerily pale. An awful feeling made itself known in Jack's gut.

He jumped down the stairs two at a time, voice bordering on frantic. "Owen?" He tentatively placed a hand on Owen's shoulder, then almost jumped out of his skin when Owen twisted around to face him.

"Damn it Owen, you scared me there for a second. I though you were..." Oh damn.

"Dead?" Owen asked tiredly, "Well congratulations Captain, it took three weeks to get there, but in the end you finally figured it out. Maybe we should have a parade?" he gave a resigned sigh. "Of course I'm dead, you just forgot again."

Jack looked suitably chastised. "Sorry," he said, then in an attempt to lighted the mood, "I promise I don't do it on purpose..." He reached over for Owen again, resting his hand on the back of Owen's neck. The skin felt strange, cold and clammy. It still felt wrong to Jack. "Always so cold now," he mused, then immediately regretted saying it out loud.

"Corpses usually are, Jack." Owen stated.

"Yeah," Jack murmured, "Sorry. Again."

"It's okay," Owen hunched forwards, folding his arms in front of his chest in an unconscious gesture of protection. "I do get it you know. I forget too. I just can't seem to switch context. Not properly."

"I'm not sure I understand." Jack walked around the autopsy bench to face Owen.

"We're still operating from the wrong frame of reference most of the time. You're seeing a person who's mostly alive, bit with a little bit of dead mixed in, but that's backwards. I'm mostly dead, there's just a few bits left pretending to be alive."

"I don't really think that's..."

"Like I said, it's not your fault. Martha made the same mistake, and she was even trying to do the proper scientific detachment thing. It's just human nature. If something looks alive and sounds alive and acts alive, you assume that it is alive. It's a really hard one to shake." He sighed. "Martha said I had to make sure I didn't get bruised, that if I did it would be permanent."

Jack nodded. He remembered the sick feeling in his gut when Martha had explained it to them. Owen was fragile. Easily breakable, completely irreparable.

Owen held his damaged hand up, the palm facing away from Jack. He pinched the end of one of his fingers.

"See this finger?" Owen pushed on. "I bent it backwards. Dislocated the knuckle, damn near snapped the bone in two. If anything was going to cause bruising, that would have done it. But do you see any bruises?"

Jack shook his head. Owen nodded, then clenched his hand into a loose fist and smashed it down hard on the rounded metal corner of the autopsy bench. The loud 'thwack' made Jack jump, and instinctively he grabbed for Owen's wrist.

"No bruise. No nothing. It's not just that it doesn't hurt, it doesn't do anything." Owen didn't resist as Jack started rubbing at the impact point like a parent might do for a distressed child. "Basic science really. A bruise is just a sub-dermal bleed, caused when a blood vessel is burst without breaking the skin. I don't bleed, so I don't bruise."

Owen's delivery was matter of fact, but shaky. His demonstration had been just as disturbing to himself as it had been to Jack. Jack kept rubbing at the non-existent bruise anyway. A lot of thoughts were vying for his attention, and the repetitive motion helped to order them.

Then suddenly everything jarred into place.

Jack turned Owen's fist around and used his free hand to tease back the fingers of Owen's fist. The scalpel cut was still there, but it looked different now.

"And this?" Jack asked, so quiet it was almost a whisper.

Instead of a clean cut, the flesh of Owen's hand had become mangled, marked with small holes that had become stretched and contorted. Unhealed stitch marks.

"And this," Owen echoed, "will never close over, no matter how many times I stitch it together." He stood up, removing his wrist from Jack's grip.

"I can't leave it as an open wound. It will just tear further under any sort of pressure, and an open cut is an invitation for infection. But every time I stitch it closed it gets harder to do. There's less undamaged skin to stitch into, and the damage to the surrounding area means that the sutures don't hold as well or for as long."

Jack nodded his understanding. "So..?" he prompted.

"So I got that." Owen gestured towards the still-hot soldering iron.

Jack raised an eyebrow.

"Cauterisation," Owen explained. "I was just going to super glue the thing closed, but the wound is too... Open for that. My blood vessels may not have any blood in them, but they're still there and still open. So I was going to cauterise the whole area, then super glue it closed. Problem solved."

"Problem solved," echoed Jack, "except...?"

"Except I couldn't do it. I'd disinfect the area, heat up the damn soldering iron, get it ready to do it, and then nothing. I couldn't consciously press that thing onto the skin of my hand. My body just wouldn't do what I told it to do."

"I can see how that would be a problem," Jack agreed.

"Hell of a time to develop a self-preservation instinct" Owen commented wryly. The two stood awkwardly for a few moments, Owen embarrassed and Jack thoughtful. It was Jack who eventually broke the silence.

"What if I did it for you?" He asked. Owen looked confused, and then surprised.

"What?"

"Would it help if I did it for you?"

Owen expression was surprised, then disturbed, then thoughtful.

"Do you want to?" he asked.

"I can't say it was on my list of top ten things to do today," Jack replied, then hesitated... "But if you honestly think that this is the best option, then I trust you to make that decision. And if I can help, then I will."

"But doesn't it... Make you feel uncomfortable?" he prompted. Jack gave something which was presumably supposed to be a reassuring smile.

"I don't want to deliberately cause you harm Owen, if that's what you're asking... But as you pointed out yourself, you won't feel any pain, so if it will make things easier on you in the future it's worth it.

Owen nodded. "Do you know how?"

"Several short, light touches," Jack replied, "enough to seal open blood vessels and damage the top layers of the skin enough to prevent bacterial infection, but not so long as to damage the deep tissue". Owen blinked in surprise, then nodded again.

"Good enough," he said, "since we don't really know exactly what the right thing is under the circumstances, that'll do". He offered his hand to Jack, split palm facing up.

Jack took the proffered hand, very loosely enclosing it between his own two palms affectionately before resting it gently in his left hand. When he picked up the soldering iron though, Owen flinched.

It was only a slight movement, but Jack tightened his grip around Owen's wrist. He stroked the cool skin lightly with his thumb. The tightness in the tendons of relaxed very slightly with the attention, but Owen's gaze was still fixed on the lightly smoking steel wand in Jack's hand.

Jack returned the iron to the table.

"This might be easier if you close your eyes," Jack suggested. Owen shook his head.

"I very much doubt it," he said, "Someone's got to make sure you do it right." There was a pause, then, "And I've developed a sort of... scotophobia. Trust me, it's better if I keep my eyes open."

"You're afraid of the dark?" Jack queried. Owen's expression made it clear that, if he had still had a working circulatory system, he would have turned quite pink with embarrassment.

"Okay," Jack continued, "that's something we're definitely going to have to talk about," Owen's eyes widened, stricken, so Jack continued, "but not now. Soon, but not now. One thing at a time."

Owen nodded. His gaze started drifting back to the tool on the table, but Jack caught his cheek with his free hand and directed it back to face him. With his fingers still resting on Owen's face, Jack continued.

"Then focus on me. You don't have to close your eyes, you can keep them open the entire time, but focus on my face and not my hands."

Owen considered this, then gave an awkward nod. After a few moments, Jack took his hand away from Owen's cheek and again lifted up the soldering iron. For less than a second Owen's eyes darted to the implement in Jack's hand, but then immediately reverted to Jack's face.

"Okay?" Jack prompted.

Owen nodded slowly. Then shook his head.

"No. Do it anyway"

So Jack did.


End file.
